Humanism, Baboonism, and Future Being in Plato's Theaetetus

14 Pages·2011·0.07 MB·English

Humanism, Baboonism, and Future Being in Plato's Theaetetus
Owen Goldin, Marquette University
As will become abundantly clear this weekend, the term “humanism” can refer to a
number of different philosophical approaches. It can refer to the pedagogical principle that it the
young are going to be good citizens and good people, they need a solid training in the
humanities, those disciplines that focus on human achievements and productions. It can refer a
reorientation of human speculation and research away from supernatural and theistic matters
towards those that are more amenable to human, rational inquiry. It can refer to the view that
human beings are central to truth and meaning of any sort. Is the term what Aristotle would call
a pros hen equivocal? That is to say, is there one sense which is central, by virtue of which the
others are to be understood? Or is the term truly equivocal? Is it an accident of history that the
same term refers to intellectual approaches that are related only insofar as all have some relation
to human beings?
I raise the question, but do not answer it. Nonetheless, the three varieties of humanism
have often been found together, and were apparently so conjoined at the very dawn of the
Western intellectual and educational tradition. I am thinking of the early Greek sophistic
movement, and, in particular, in the thought and teaching of the most notable of the sophists,
Protagoras. For Protagoras advertised himself as one who could train the young in virtue, and an
integral part of his educational program was training in literary criticism and interpretation.1 He

1 See Plato, Protagoras, 339a. “I consider, Socrates, that the greatest part of a man’s education is to be in
command of poetry, by which I mean the ability to understand the words of the poets, to know when a poem is
was explicitly agnostic concerning the gods, and kept himself from speculation concerning
theological matters.2 And, notoriously, it was Protagoras who opened his book Truth with the
pronouncement that “Human beings are the measure of all things, but things that are, that they
are, and things that are not, that they are not” (Plato, Theaetetus, 152a).
Beyond his emphasis on training his students in the ability to argue for both sides of a
question,3 we are certain of very little more of Protagoras and his teachings. But there are two
dialogues of Plato, Protagoras and Theaetetus, in which Plato explores Protagoras’ thought in a
creative and speculative manner. My focus today is one aspect of the Theaetetus’ expansion,
elaboration, and refutation of Protagorean relativism. Plato has Socrates offer a Protagoras
whose views of truth and reality that put human perception at the center of things. For Plato,
Protagoras’ metaphysical humanism, as it were, accounts for his educational program and
avoidance of any appeal to a transcendental source of truth or value. The views of Protagoras are
discussed here more fully and more charitably than those of nearly any other Socratic
interlocutor. For often in the Platonic dialogues, Socrates’ arguments against another’s position
leave the interlocutor speechless, that is, without a logos by which to defend it. But in the

correctly composed and when not, and to know how to analyze poems and to respond to questions about it.” tr.
Lombardo and Bell.
2 DK 80 B4: “I can have no knowledge concerning the gods, neither whether they are nor whether they are
not, nor what sort of form any of them have. For many things prevent knowledge – the matter is unclear, and life is
short.” my translation.
3 DK 80A1.
Theaetetus, Protagoras gives a full and spirited defense of his views, offered by a most able
advocate, Socrates himself (166a-168b). This is followed by a series of arguments even more
severe than the first (170a-186e), after which Theaetetus and Socrates both abandon Protagoras’
views. Yet even as he presents these arguments Socrates mentions that were he able, Protagoras
might well poke his head out of the ground and say even more on his behalf, to meet Socrates’
critique (171c-d). This may be a mere humorous aside; on the other hand it might be an
admission that there is more to say, that dialogue might well continue, and might do so without
any prospect of resolution
I here continue the juxtaposition of and dialogue between the two perspectives. My focus
is the argument concerning the predictive power of knowledge, which, according to Theodorus,
is that by which Protagoras is especially refuted (malista haliskesthai, 179b), to the effect that
Protagoras’ own admission of expertise entails that some people are better than others at
predicting the character of future perceptions, from which admission Socrates concludes that not
all beliefs are true (177c-179d). I suggest that Protagoras could well have met this objection, on
the basis of the denial of the substantiality and continuity of the human person, a denial to which
Protagoras is antecedently committed. I suggest that the stance of Protagoras is not as marginal
and odd as first appears, and begin to speculate concerning its applicability to two meditative and
religious traditions.
I begin by tracing the line of argumentation that leads up to the argument concerning
expertise about the future. Theaetetus does not object when Socrates identifies his thesis that
knowledge is perception with Protagoras’ dictum: “Humans are the measure of all things, both
those that are, that they are, and those that are not, that they are not” (152a). It is not
immediately clear why the theses are to be identified. Can one not consistently say that my
knowledge that the pen is blue consists in my perceiving it to be so, without thereby making the
further claim that the pen is blue because I so perceived it? Protagoras’ dictum follows only if
we conjoin to the identification of knowledge and perception the empirical truth that different
things are perceived differently, both by different perceivers and by the same perceiver
differently disposed. In explicating Protagoras’ thought, Socrates provides evidence for this: the
same wind will be perceived as cold by one emerging from warm air, and will be perceived as
warm by one emerging from cold air. The air, then , is neither warm nor cold in itself. To know
the hotness or coldness of the air is simply to perceive it (152a-c).
Socrates proceeds to universalize Protagoras’s point, and draws out two major sets of
implications. First, if we conjoin to Protagoras’ principle the apparently uncontroversial premise
that all of the characteristics of sensible things are themselves sensible, then there is no stable,
nonrelative truth of the perceived object as such. All of its characteristics will be relative to how
they are perceived (152d-e). Second, this result can be extended to the sense organ, or the
perceiving himself or herself. All three aspects of reality: the perceiver, the cause of the
perception, and the perceived characteristics, are dependent on changing circumstances. Because
the circumstances by which perceiver and perceived come together are in motion, these
circumstances themselves are always different, with the result that all of these three aspects of
reality are always changing. Hence, Protagoras’ view is said by Socrates to entail that he
attributes to Heraclitus, that all things change and nothing stays the same (156c-157c, 158e-
160e).
Second, as I have mentioned aisthēsis refers to more than the apprehension of simple
sensed features like color or warmth that Aristotle calls aisthēta; it includes perception of facts
like “Theaetetus is sitting” or for that matter anything of which one is aware or conscious. There
is no need to restrict what Protagoras says to direct sensory perception: any sort of belief results
from an awareness of the world. This is why Socrates reexpresses Protagoras’ view as to the
effect that all beliefs are true to those who hold them (167a-b); within the context of the
discussion of Protagoras‘ views, “belief” is synonymous with “perception.” All beliefs,
including ethical and other normative ones, arise as a result of the interface between certain
circumstances and those who are making judgments or choices concerning them. But those
circumstances, and the nature of those making them (virtuous or unvirtuous? wise or unwise?)
are necessarily a result of the sort of ethical evaluation in question.
At this point Socrates offers two lines of argument to refute Theaetetus’ position. The
first is to the effect that neither Protagoras, nor we, can believe the implications of his view: that
the mad or the dreaming, as well lower beasts, such as pigs or baboons, are just as much
perceivers as are those human beings generally recognized as in their right minds. Are they to be
the measure of all things? Further, given that all beliefs are true, why ought we to spend good
money to learn from Protagoras at all? The second brings up cases (as when an object is
perceived with one eye but not another, or as when something is remembered but not perceived).
If knowledge is perception, we must conclude that in such cases something is both known and
not known.
Socrates now imagines the sorts of things that Protagoras might say if he were to offer a
spirited defense of his view. After accusing Socrates of unfair argument for the sake of scoring
points, Protagoras reaffirms his original position. He strongly suggests (166d), though does not
explicitly state, that the first two sets of counterintuitive results that Socrates derived from his
position are indeed ones that he would endorse. Things are for the mad or the dreaming as they
seem. But why harp on that, if we are (apparently) neither mad nor dreaming? Further, for
Protagoras pigs or baboons are indeed just as much the measure of all things are are human
beings. In not dwelling on the point, Protagoras is in effect saying “well, so what?” For
Protagoras is himself a human being, and so are the ones with whom he, and others, need to deal,
in convincing others to look at things differently, or in taking note of how things seem to others
in order to get them to act in a way that seems best to him. This is why, in ssying that the
measure of all things is human beings, Protagoras is a humanist and not a baboonist.
Further, it will indeed be the case that one who perceives something in one respect but
not in another will both know and not know.4 Now is not the time to develop this point, but
Protagoras is able to avoid a simple and direct refutation on the basis of the principle of
noncontradiction by taking all truth claims (including those concerning his own thesis on the
relativity of truth) to be relative to those to whom they appear; nonrelativized assertions are as it
were syntactically incomplete. So, in this case, Protagoras could easily evade Socrates’
objection that one with one eye closed both knows and does not know the apple before one,

4 At 166a Protagoras is made to say that Theaetetus is frightened by the result that one can both know and
not know the same thing, which suggests that this is the fright of a child, to what is neither uncommon nor
dangerous.
either by asserting that, to him, such a result does not seem impossible, or by showing that, even
if one does hold to the principle of noncontradiction, there is no contradiction involved in one
eye’s knowing something and another eye’s not. Such a response, of course, raises questions
concerning the unity of the knowing subject, to which Socrates will soon turn.
Protagoras next turns to the question of his own expertise. All perceptions are indeed
true. But we would all agree that not all of our perceptions are good; that is to say, we would
rather not have them. Thus, one ill might feel and unpleasant chill, or familiar foods might taste
bad. Such a percipient becomes the patient of a doctor, not in order to perceive more correctly,
but simply to have those perceptions that would be preferred (in this context, this would mean,
more pleasant). The doctor’s expertise is an ability to change the bad perceptions to good
perceptions. So too, in regard to an individual or society’s perceptions concerning the just and
the unjust, or the noble and ignoble (166e-167d). Protagoras reaffirms his ethical relativism: a
practice or action is just to the one, or ones, who deem it such. What the sophist Protagoras can
do, and can teach others to do, is substitute better, not truer, perceptions or beliefs concerning
these matters. We note that Protagoras offers his defense in the form of attributing to him and
other experts not knowledge, but the action of altering appearances, making them appear, and be,
good (metaballōn poiēsēi agatha phainesthai te kai einai, 166d). It is not that the expert rids one
of false beliefs. “Rather, I believe that he makes the one who, by virtue of a bad disposition of
soul, has beliefs that are akin [to that disposition], have other such beliefs, by virtue of a good
disposition – beliefs which some, through inexperience, call true appearance, but I call the ones
better, but not truer, than the others” (167b).5
Protagoras’ defense is the occasion for a new line of argument by Socrates. The first is
the full expression of what has become known as “the turning of the tables argument,” to the
effect that, if Socrates does not believe that human beings are the measure, then human beings
are not the measure, and, to the extent that those who reject Protagoras’ thesis outnumber those
who endorse it, his thesis is falser than it is true (170e-171c). This brings us to the argument that
is the focus of this paper. Socrates returns Protagoras’ view, to the effect that the expert changes
negative perceptions to positive ones. consists in the ability to transform negative perceptions
into positive ones. But note how he restates this point. Protagoras has asserted that some beliefs
or perceptions were better than others, but not truer than others, and that the expert does
something – namely, transform bad perceptions to good ones. Socrates makes the point that the
expert, who so effects the transformation, does a better job of having beliefs (doxazein beltion,
178d5, cf. e5, beltion prodoxasais) since he has the criterion, or basis for making the distinction
within him (178c1). Socrates presumes that the power to alter perceptions, granted by
Protagoras, involves not better beliefs (the existence of which Protagoras also grants) but
believing, better, which Protagoras would not. But how serious is the distortion of Protagoras’
views? For surely Protagoras would grant that the expert not only does this or that; she does it
by virtue of beliefs concerning the future effects of her actions. So understood, Protagoras’
account would commit us to two levels of beliefs. First order beliefs are those that everyone has
in their interactions with the world, such as “this room is very chilly” or “this tax is unjust.“

5 My translation. the text is disputed; I follow Burnyeat.
Protagoras has said that all such beliefs are true, even if some of them are unpleasant or
otherwise “bad.” The expert has beliefs concerning how to best substitute positively evaluated
beliefs for negatively evaluated ones. Socrates points out that we are necessarily committed to
saying that these second order beliefs are either true or false. For the expert either has that
ability or he does not, and the matter will be verified by future perceptions. If a doctor promises
that a certain medication will take away the chills (that is, the beliefs that the air is chilly), and it
does not, the second order beliefs of both the doctor, as well as those of the patient who believes
him, will have been shown to have been wrong; likewise in regard to the effects of logoi (178e).
Hence, Socrates can claim, Protagoras must admit that not all beliefs are true.
Socrates’ argument against Protagorean relativism on the basis of future expertise
presupposes a continuity of the perceiving subject, from the asking of advice from the expert,
through the taking of the advice, and the determination of whether the action taking indeed
worked to change bad perceptions into good ones. But, as Socrates himself pointed out (157a-b),
if Protagorean relativism is to be associated with a radical flux theory, there will, indeed, be no
continual subject, for the percipient, too, is ever changing. Although this move provides yet
another escape hatch for Protagoras, it threatens to do so in a way that makes consultation with
Protagoras, or any expert, meaningless. For if it is not the same me that will experience the
results of taking Protagoras’ advice, then one could always literally ask in regard to the advice
“what’s in it for me?” Likewise, if Protagoras is defending himself, or anyone else, as an expert,
should someone hold him responsible for promising what he could not deliver, again, the sophist
can slip away by insisting that, he, Protagoras, at the time the accusation is being made, is not the
same as the Protagoras who urged his potential follower to receive instruction. Socrates had
cited Epicharmus as one who, Protagoras, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Homer, advocated that
all things are in flux (152e). In so doing, he implicitly alludes to how Protagorean relativism,
taken so far as to avoid positing the continuity of the subject, ultimately renders meaningless the
notion of ethical responsibility. For Epimarchus fr. 136 PCG tells us that in one of his plays, one
character asks another to pay his fair share for participating in a symposium. The character
refuses: as he has since grown, he is no longer the same individual who incurred the debt. This
response is met by blows from the first character who, when charged with battery absolves
himself with the remark that he is no longer the same one who threw the punch. Protagoras or
any alleged expert could acquit himself likewise.
Accordingly, if we push the Protagorean view as far as we can, what appears to be the
case – concerning part, present, and future, is truly the case for the one to which it appears,
where that one exists only at the moment of appearance, and future events will not be such as to
contradict such appearance, since the future self will be different. How, then, are we to interpret
Protagoras’ defense of his, and others’ expertise, as one who can change bad perceptions into
good ones? The only way to do so, which does not become subject to Socrates’ criticisms, is to
say that Protagoras’ expertise is not thought to bear on the future at all. Protagoras has the
ability to change one’s perceptions at the moment from negative to positive. We note how this
brings Protagoras’ understanding of his craft in line with what Socrates in the Gorgias has to say
concerning the empeiriai of sophistry and rhetoric – they are not true tekhnai as they do not have
their eye on transforming the current state of affairs into what is truly good, rather, they aim
towards the pleasure of the moment, and are forms of flattery (462c-465d). A Protagorean
response might be – what is wrong with that, if all there is, is, in fact, for one in the moment?